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As I type this, the robotic spacecraft Cassini is traveling at 2.4 kilometers per second (about 5,300 MPH) relative to the planet Saturn. On April 9th, when Cassini makes its closest approach to the planet during this current orbit, the…

More than 50 years of planetary exploration have yielded a rich harvest of data, including many volumes of pictures. These images have revealed the faces of nearly all the nearby worlds, which have turned out to be both forboding and…

The motion of Saturn’s north polar vortex–as seen just last Friday by the robotic spacecraft Cassini. The eye is about 50 times larger than an Earthly hurricane’s, and the clouds at the outer edge are traveling at more than 150…